How Broome pearls are delivering a sense of belonging back to the community

Steve ButlerThe West Australian

Sunday, 15 July 2018 4:00PM

Willie Creek shows us how to harvest a pearl

The West Australian

VideoWillie Creek's CEO Sally Hollins, shows us how to harvest a pearl.

The eyes say it all as Tiara Lawford gazes past a perfect 20mm pearl and out on to the Broome land her people have called home for generations.

Valued at $75,000, the pearl harvested last week at the picturesque headquarters of Willie Creek Pearls is a rare find. Athough Ms Lawford’s eyes sparkle as much as the prized jewellery item as she cradles it in her index fingers, for her there is a deeper meaning.

The 20-year-old said she used her role as a tour guide for Willie Creek Pearls, one of five such operations in Broome, to boost her self-pride and to act as a role model for her siblings and her people.

“Just to be a role model for my younger siblings is probably the most important thing and even for just the town itself,” Ms Lawford said on a break between the heavy tourism traffic on the plot about 38km from Broome.

“My family has been here all their lives. We all grew up fishing here and tourism is such an important play to us here in Broome. I remember when I used to sit on the rocks and see the boat and I used to wave to them as a kid, now it’s me waving to all the children on the rocks.”

Ms Lawford is one of two Aboriginal tour guides for Willie Creek Pearls, but just one of many human faces who make up the region’s diverse, but lucrative, pearling operation. And it is 36km out to sea from Willie Creek where it is at its most raw.

Here is where a tapestry of different cultures collide among the employees tending to the delicate process of growing up to 30,000 oysters in the open ocean. Beside them there are humpback whales breaching, dolphins playing, irukandji jellyfish lurking, sharks and birds feeding on massive fish bait-balls and even the odd turtle popping its head up for a look at the goings-on.

It is quite a spectacular scene.

Camera IconLong lines at sunset in the estuary at the Willie Creek pearl farm.Picture: THE WEST AUSTRALIAN

Autore Pearls head technician Steve Rothwell seeds up to 400 oysters a day on the rolling sea ... and he claims to be one of the slower operators on the 30m 1974 mothership. But as technical as the process is, there is a thriving camaraderie among the 29 crew members, who are on the ship for up to 12 days at a time.

“You’re basically living, working and eating together and we get on really well,” Mr Rothwell said.

“We have barbecue nights on the roof of the boat and pearlers’ long table dinners at sea, so it’s all good fun. We have three cooked meals a day with all the trimmings and the best part is at the end of the day sitting on the end of the boat having a beer and chewing the fat.”

Willie Creek Pearls operations manager Paul Birch, a former Dunsborough-based winemaker, said a joint venture with Autore Pearls to open a hatchery in Broome was a sign that the secretive “dark days” of the pearling industry had been replaced with a growing sense of collaboration.

“The industry is coming together and understanding the necessity to share some information or to collaborate to obtain information,” Mr Birch said.

“It’s changed a lot from the days of blackbirding, when indigenous women were made to dive off pearl luggers to collect shell in what was effectively slavery, through to the days when ships were coming back so laden with shell that they were almost going to sink.

“We’re now into an era when we’re looking towards science to look into issues that will allow us to compete on a world scale. The industry is a lot better than it was, but we need to keep our focus.”

Camera IconWillie Creek pearl farm has three resident crocodiles.Picture: THE WEST AUSTRALIAN

Willie Creek Pearls chief executive Sally Hollins said tourism numbers this year had been cut because of a big wet early in the year, good weather in the southern part of the State, expensive flights and fewer cruise ships visiting the region.

But it had not dimmed her passion for her pearls.

“They really are quite beautiful and when one comes out like that, it just reminds you how extraordinary these things are,” she said after the $75,000 pearl was revealed.

“Our entire business revolves around the pearl. People come here to see how it’s created, how the oysters are grown, how we seed and harvest a pearl and then they take one home as a souvenir.

“For nature to have created something quite so stunning and quite so perfect is extraordinary. No female can wear a set of lustrous pearls and not feel better. It’s really life itself ... out of adversity can come something gorgeous.”

Camera IconHiro Akune seeds oysters on the pearling mothership off Broome.Picture: WEST AUSTRALIAN

Mrs Hollins said her company was soon hoping for approval to expand Willie Creek’s 5000sqm facility, which is home to three resident crocodiles, to help offer a better “spat (larvae) to showroom” tourism experience.